This invention relates to a method of treating sub-surface hardpan to improve growing conditions.
In some places in the world, and typically in pine forests in the United States of America, it has been found that a hardpan devleops below the surface of the soil within which the trees are planted.
The causes of such a hard pan have been broadly discussed elsewhere but it is generally acknowledged that the existence of a hardpan of such a type immediately below a growing location of a tree, especially of a type such as a pine tree, can severly inhibit the subsequent growth of that tree.
The hardpan can comprise consolidated clays and can be of such density and structure that a subsequent tree will find significant difficulty, with severe retardation of growth, attempting to push its roots through such a pan.
It is not unknown to try to break this pan by pulling a tine with a sharp end beneath the pan.
The problem hitherto has been that with tynes of previous manufacture and method of control, even though each tine passes through and breaks an immediately localised area of the pan, the effect does not appear to be long-lasting, in that the materials forming the hardpan still remain in the vicinity, and while there is some improvement, the improvement does not last for any extended period of time.